Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail Dev's Profits Eclipse Even PlayStation

It's fine, I'm sure Fairgame$ will make PlayStation just as much profit.

This is the money Big Jimbo wants.

And people wonder why Sony is investing in GaaS. This. This is why.

And no, I don't think anyone can argue that either are outright bad games.

@ShogunRok You’re not serious, right?

I mean you're putting up money for a random result, that IS gambling, that is lottery. It isn't a matter of what the critics say, that's a fact.
critics just leverage that fact.

But yeah games as a service is huge in Asia. Not so popular here. Consoles exist because we didn't want to pump quarters into the arcade anymore.

That doesn't mean there aren't those people who still get that rush.
You know like that rush you get... when you're gambling.

I felt like I owe them £5 at least for a fantastic game like Genshin but I see they're doing fine 😁. Gotta say their menu and items design is up there with the best, like FromSoftware's, fackn beautiful!

@themightyant Real talk i'm too poor to play these games, but they look tight.

Pure insanity lol.

Well, if GaaS has to be a thing, I'd prefer it to be something like this. Big-budget games outside of the multiplayer model that, gacha aside, feel like real releases. I perfectly enjoyed my 20 hours or so of GI without feeling like I was missing out.

I knew someone would eventually harness the power of waifus to make a proper killing.

@themightyant Yeah I might check this out on a console because i've been waiting for another eden to come to consoles forever, and I don't think it will. There's never been any indication it would. I just hoped. I cannot game on the phone at all.

@themightyant
There are a lot of people with addictive personalities that these games deliberately take advantage of. It’s exploitative and should be regulated as gambling. Simple. But yes they might be good games

That's super crazy, 1 developer vs all of playstation? Mihoyo is badass lol.

And people wonder why Live service is important to sony.

I don't have any problems with Sony trying to get a piece of that action, especially if the profits made were to be invested back into making other games better. They may even actually come up with a live service game that's fun to play in itself. My hopes aren't high for what we've seen so far though.

Nah, fam, internet people told me GaaS games are dead.

Ah the memories when sony invested in the Genshin development and put the game on display in one of the biggest Chinese expos and the internet freaked out because "Sony had a Zelda clone" and white people started destroying ps4 outside the venue.

I'm sure those same white people are the whales of this game right now LOL.

I bet most of the spending is from mobile gamers.

I play Honkai and there is a system where you can use other players characters for certain item farm missions. One of the top characters was on the premium pull and you only had a couple of weeks to unlock her. To get her you needed to do 90 pulls to get a higher chance of 5* character. You could not get that amount with the free tickets, you had to spend cash as it was something dumb like 0.6% chance of pulling a 5* and 50% chance that 5* was the featured character. The character is so OP that you can pretty much use her to solo most fights. And only the whales or those the rng gods sided with unlocked the character. Still a fun game though but very short as only 1.5 levels are out at the moment.

@themightyant all these games survive on usually about 10% of there players being to what the industry refer to as whales.

@thefourfoldroot1 it is in some countries. China I believe is one of the most heavily regulated markets.

These Eastern gacha games works by having the option to either just grind the "Premium" gacha currency in game, which can take months and you'll have to take advantage of as many opportunities that offer them in-game as possible or you can sink Hundreds or maybe even thousands to (attempt to) get the best-in-class characters/skills (and in the case of some games like GI, weapons) in next to no time.

Publishers and Publishers of these games rely on the paying players to keep the servers running but also equally needs the more majority of the lower-spending or non-spending players to help keep the balance in check and also because the raw number of players are important as well.

I think the only reason these games get off lightly overall is because there's nothing game-changing in their gacha banners that you can't get for free with the patience at grinding and getting some luck in your favour, but if it's possible to buy the gacha currency then the odds legally has to be disclosed, with most even disclosing the odds right down to each individual character/skill/card.

To me these games all feel "hollow. Hollow if you're not paying because you're reminded at every turn it's incomplete if you're not paying, and hollow if you are paying because you're reminded the other guy pays more and gets more, and even after you "win" then you're reminded you just paid to skip playing the game. Just feels unsatisfying and more like a framework than a complete product to me.

Then again, I think the thrill of gambling and losing money is supposed to be the fun, and I don't find gambling fun. I'd rather hoard all my tokens than spend them.

@Ralizah "I knew someone would eventually harness the power of waifus to make a proper killing."

LOL, I wonder if people realize they could have just bought real porn for less money? Or real hookers.... Better spent money. And you might even win a high level STD!

@NEStalgia A lot of the people paying through the nose for Kirara the cat girl aren't going to touch stinky 3D women with a bargepole.

@Ralizah I......just.....yeah..... the part of me that knows you're right is fighting with the part of me trying to say I don't get it

Even if you tell them there's a 5% chance of winning syphilis, they'd still not take the hooker for half the price?

@NEStalgia Lol winning? That's more like 5% chance of debuff.

@NEStalgia Can sex workers send enemies flying into the air with a Meow-teor Kick?

Are they catgirls?

I didn't think so.

The power of anime transcends the appeal of flesh-and-blood that keeps you normies trapped in this reality.

I'd take this reality any day over being villager c in some horror anime.

If Sony really wanted this money, they'd start making more appealing looking characters in all those live service games they're making. There's a reason why aloy is the least used character in the genshin

As it is they're setting up fairgames to be an utter failure

@Judal27 That's funny. I really like Aloy. Actually, I started playing Genshin purely so I could snag her, and stopped playing soon after I progressed to the point where I was able to obtain the character.

@z0d15g0d Ssshh, you're not supposed to tell the premium customers that, it's in the meta-data only!!

@Ralizah "Are they catgirls?"

How much are you paying?

This is why I never went to a comiccon. Or Pokemon comp. Or Gamestop.

@Judal27 Are you trying to say sex sells? LIES! Make a live service game entirely about nuns and mennonite women and watch the profits soar!!

@Ralizah " I really like Aloy. Actually, I started playing Genshin purely so I could snag her"

You're really going to phrase it like that in this conversation?????

@NEStalgia "This is why I never went to a comiccon. Or Pokemon comp. Or Gamestop."

No self-respecting basement dweller goes to Comic-Con anymore now that the bigger cons are all full of normies without crippling social anxiety issues.

No self-respecting human goes to Gamestop unless they're unfortunate enough to work there.

"You're really going to phrase it like that in this conversation?????"

Yeah, I knew the wording was sus as soon as I posted that lol.

My intentions are pure as the driven snow. Promise. I just really like her rugged masculine charm.

@Ralizah it's a sad truth. Shes pretty much always ranked dead last since she was released at 0.1-.2% usage. It could be other factors, she is weak but weaker characters still get more usage

@NEStalgia lmao look up Rosaria. It can sell if done right

@wiiware You have to keep in mind they don't own a platform in which they take their revenue and reinvest it into games services, servers, maintenance, research and development logistics distribution etc. I think they average around 24 bil revenue yearly so alot back into operations. Still nice achievement for miyho

I would like to know which countries make the most dough. I know that in China having stuff that can only be is status.

@Tru80zGamer It just show how profitable this live service games are, no wonder playstation is all about live service now.

I just think playstation should be more creative about their live service games, more genshin impact like games rather than boring ubisoft shooter- like games like Haven Studios Fairgames.

...and I would not be shocked if the bulk of that revenue is coming from Android and iOS.

@GymratAmarillo

Ah the memories when sony invested in the Genshin development and put the game on display in one of the biggest Chinese expos and the internet freaked out because "Sony had a Zelda clone" and white people started destroying ps4 outside the venue.

I don't know if this was more widespread, but I only recall one incident and it was also a Chinese individual that did this. I did go googling up before posting this, and the articles I found noted that most of the negative reaction was centered in China.

@NEStalgia

Are you trying to say sex sells? LIES! Make a live service game entirely about nuns and mennonite women and watch the profits soar!!

I don't see how all those things are mutually exclusive...

@Tharsman I saw live tweeting of the incidents, because it happened more than once (and it was fun to watch lol) and at least the one i remember was a white dude, now that doesn't necessarily mean he wasn't chinese lol.

Either way, people talked big sh*t at the moment and now are spending a lot of money in the game. And it was a good business for PS because it's well known Genshin has made a lot of money for Sony.

@Tharsman ROFL! I'm pretty sure I've just exceeded my quota of internet for 2023.

And yeah overall I think this series shows the success of mobile games more than it shows the success of GaaS specifically.

@NEStalgia

And yeah overall I think this series shows the success of mobile games more than it shows the success of GaaS specifically.

I feel I could just paste my previous reply here... but I wont... mobile games are basically all GaaS. Paid up front mobile games are not that competitive (Minecraft being the biggest exception.)

@knowles2
I don't know about the 10% percentage, but you are right about whales sustaining games like these. Even more so, they have "krakens" now that far outspend whales. I didn't know that was a thing and it is terrifying to think about.